iS?  83® 


Price  10c. 


Ja«.  H.  Kirby,  3X3^4  S.  5th  St.,  Sprinffitld,  111 


INTRODUCTION 


Springfield,  Ill.,  Sept.  30,  1912. 

The  only  apology  I  have  for  writing  this  Anti-Bull 
Mooser  and  presenting  it  to  the  public  is  because  the  local 
papers  did  not  want  to  publish  all  I  had  to  say  against  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  I  would  gladly  have  given  it  free  to  the  public 
if  the  papers  had  published  it.  Since  I  have  to  work  and 
make  a  living  by  the  sweat  of  my  face  the  nominal  sum  of 
10c  will  be  charged  to  pay  the  expenses  of  publishing.  The 
work  itself  is  donated. 


JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


Written  by  James  H.  Kirby  just  previous  to  the  Bull 
Moose  convention  in  Chicago. 

Springfield,  Ill.,  July  27,  1912. 

OUR  COUNTRY’S  DANGER. 

Every  country  has  a  birth,  life,  and  £  death.  This  his¬ 
tory  proves,  and  history  is  continually  repeating  itself.  Every 
nation  is  an  organization  of  a  company  of  men.  Human 
nature  is  the  same  wherever  we  find  it  and  in  every  age. 
Since  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  down  to  the  nasty 
right  now,  the’  proclivities  of  the  human  mind  are  the  same. 
There  always  has  been  and  there  always  will  be  the  slave 
and  the  slave  driver.  There  alw’ays  has  been  and  there 
always  will  be  the  boss  and'  the  bossed.  There  always  have 
been  men  who  are  determined  to  rute,  and  men  who  are 
willing  to  be  ruled  over.  This  overbearing,  dominating 
egotistic,  I  am  that  I  am,  principle  in  man  is  what  has 
caused  the  earth  a  thousand  times  to  flow  with  blood.  Man, 
know  thyself,  the  motto  for  the  human  race,  proves  that 
after  we  have  found  ourselves  out  we  have  only  proved  to 
be  what  we  abhorred  and1  dreaded  in  others.  A  little  power 
is  a  dangerous  thing.  Not  one  in  ten  thousand  but  will 
take  advantage  of  the  influence  he  may  have.  “He  who  con¬ 
quers  himself  is  greater  than  he  was  who  taketh  a  city.”  One’s 
worst  enemy  is  one’s  self.  Having  conquered  self  the  world 
will  lie  prostrate  at  our  feet.  But  how  few  who  have 
fought  the  battle.  Eternal  vigilance,  day  by  day,  is  the  price 
of  the  victory  in  the  battle  against  self.  This  desire  to  rule 
over  is  manifested  in  every  walk  and  profession  of  life.  The 
tendency  of  the  day  is  rapid  movement.  The  rapid  transit 
of  the  body  and  things  material  by  the  masses  of  the 
people,  without  any  consideration  of  the  rapid  progress  of 
the  mind  or  soul  is  where  the  people  will  fall  behind  a  few 
that  is  going  to  rule. 

The  cause  of  every  nation’s  fall  is  not  so  much  from  the 
ambition  of  the  few  to  supersede,  but  the  lethargy  of  the 
many  to  allow  them  to  do  it.  Every  nation  is  the  cause 
of  her  own  downfall.  Everlasting  wakefulness  is  now  as  it 
ever  was  the  price  of  our  liberty.  We  pursue  our  daily 
avocation  with  an  eye  single  to  success  in  business  without 
regard  of  our  duty  to  our  country. 

We  go  to  the  polls  and  vote  ahd  think  our  duty  is  done. 
But  don’t  you  ever  think  it!  Sleep  on  your  gun,  my  dear 
fellow  citizen,  for  “Avarice  and  ambition  are  watching  in  the 
day,  while  concupiscence  (like  a  pestilence)  walketh  in  dark- 


ness.”  We  are  moving  rapidly.  It  took  other  nations  a 
few  hundred  years  to  reach  their  zenith.  We  may  be  near 
ours  now,  unless  we  awake,  arise!  We  are  living  in  an  age 
of  swiftness.  The  watch  word  now  is  go  the  limit  the  first 
bound.  We  are  the  most  swiftly  flying  nation  under  the 
sun.  And  this  is  the  swiftest  of  any  age  in  every  sphere  of 
of  human  endeavor.  I  am  only  a  young  man,  but  I  have 
seen  all  the  inventions  from  the  barbed  wire  fence  to  the 
flying  machine  and  the  wireless.  And  all  the  discoveries 
from  X  ray  to  radium.  Everything  seems  to  be  going  at 
lightning  break  speed  except  the  soul.  In  politics  we  are 
going  as  tho’  we  were  shot  out  of  a  dynamite  gun.  The  bars 
are  all  down,  the  throttle’s  wide  open,  and  Teddy  has  the 
Bull  Moose  by  the  taif  with  a  down  hill  swing.  We  stagger 
and  fall  aghast  when  we  see  senators  and  ex-senators, 
governors  and  ex-governors  fall  in  line  with  the  Bull  Moose 
party.  Surely  these  men  have  not  studied  the  downfall  of 
nations.  Surely  they  are  ignorant  of  the  signs  of  a  coun¬ 
try’s  decline.  Surely  they  do  not  know  the  symptoms  of  a 
sick  nation!  We  are  surprised  beyond  comparison.  We 
are  unable  to  move  and  wild  with  thirst  when  we  hear  the 
hammers,  blow  on  blow,  knocking  away  the  spurs  and  steel 
of  the  foundation  of  this  government.  There  was  never  any 
kind  of  a  swindling  game  but  what  the  face  of  it  seemed 
fair.  Every  “gold  brick”  scheme  seems  fair.  All  swindlers 
are  the  smoothest  and  the  best  looking  of  men.  “Billy,”  the 
bunco  steer,  that  led  tens  of  thousands  of  cattle  to  their 
slaughter  at  the  yards  in  Chicago,  was  the  most  docile  of 
animals.  And  so  Roosevelt,  the  man  who  served  two  terms 
in  the  presidency,  who  was  popular  with  all  people  at  that 
time,  and  who  was  honored  beyond  comparison,  up  to  the 
time  he  threw  his  hat  in  the  ring  for  a  third  term.  If  Teddy 
could  go  back  to  that  day  and  recall  those  words,  how 
gladly  it  seems  to  us  we  would  do  it.  But  the  siren  song  of 
ambition,  his  lust  for  the  return  of  power  and  influence, 
closed  his  eyes,  his  ears  and  his  heart  to  all  the  noble 
aspirations  of  the  heart  and  soul.  The  ego  swamped  him. 
t  He  stands  like  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  in  front  of  himself.  He 
is  as  immovable  from  his  own  vision  as  the  everlasting 
mountains.  He  sees  nothing  or  nobody  but  Teddy.  He 
stands  constantly  in  front  of  himself  looking  down  into  his 
deep  blue  eyes.  How  beautiful  he  is!  How  fair  he  lies 
within  his  own  arms,  pressed  with  many  a  fond  caress  of 
love  and  tenderness.  He  looks  not  from  without.  He  is 


4 


happy  only  from  within.  His  experience  has  evolved  this 
rule:  “If  he  can  not  be  happy  from  within  without,  he  will 

not  be  happy  from  without  within.  That  is  to  say  that  he’s 
the  whole  cheese.  Put  Washington,  Jefferson,  Lincoln,  Gar- 
eld,  and  throw  Grant  on  for  good  measure,  on  one  end  of 
the  scales,  and  Teddy  will  tilt  the  beam  his  way  every  time. 
Nobody  ever  lived  and  nothing  ever  happened  until  Rosy 
got  here.  We  speak  of  him  from  the  day  he  threw  his  hat 
in  the  ring.  We  have  just  read  that  he  has  not  taken  good 
care  of  his  teeth.  We  fear  that  he  has  more  than  mistreated 
his  head. 

Roosevelt  claims  he  is  and  has  been  fighting  for  a  great 
cause.  When  he  came  to  Springfield  in  April,  on  the  heels 
of  the  new  primary  law,  he  notified  us  at  the  Arsenal  that 
unless  the  convention  at  Chicago  was  carried  on  properly 
that  he  would  have  something  to  say.  Then  he  showed 
his  teeth  and  says,  “I’ll  have  very  much  to  say.”  That  was 
his  announcement  that  unless  he  got  the  nomination  that 
he  would  “bolt”  the  Republican  party.  His  interpretation 
of  the  improper  carrying  on  at  Chicago  was  under  any 
condition  not  to  nominate  him.  He  had  a  chance  to  cause 
the  nomination  of  Governor  Hadley  at  that  convention. 
That  would  have  been  a  compromise  and  the  Republican 
party  would  not  have  been  broken  into  fragments  all  over 
this  country.  And  long  before  the  convention,  and  long 
before  he  ever  threw”  his  hat  in  the  ring,  he  could  have 
espoused  the  candidacy  of  Bob  LaFollette  or  Senator  Cum¬ 
mings  and  have  won  the  day  at  Chicago  with  more  glory 

* 

and  renown  than  Bryan  did  at  Baltimore  w’hen  he  separated 
the  Democratic  party  from  Wall  Street. 

But  the  sun  of  Roosevelt’s  glory  has  set,  never  to  rise 
again.  He  has  proven  by  his  actions  and  conduct  to  all 
people  w’ith  a  little  sense,  and  beyond  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt  that  he  served  the  ego  instead  of  the  cause.  La 
Follette  was  the  pioneer  in  this  Republican  progressive 
movement.  He  has  alwrays  been  a  progressive  and  should 
have  been  the  hero  in  the  cause.  Roosevelt  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  political  robber.  He’s  a  pirate  on  the 
high  seas  of  self  aggrandizement.  Figuratively  speaking, 
he’s  a  spy.  He’s  a  traitor  to  the  party  that  picked  him 
up  out  of  the  mire  and  clay  and  set  him  on  the  highest 
pedestal  of  fame.  He  has  destroyed  the  party  that  Lincoln 
made.  He  has  shattered  the  most  sacred  precedents  of 
the  American  people.  He  has  lowered  the  dignity  of  the 


5 


presidency.  He  goaded  the  president  of  the  United  States 

♦ 

into  a  defense  of  his  administration,  something  that  never 
was  done  before  in  the  history  of  our  country,  and  all  be¬ 
cause  he  had  an  insatiable  desire  to  be  president  more 
times  than  any  other  man. 

We  cannot  believe  there  is  a  speck  of  sincerity  about  - 
him,  otherwise  he  would  have  sought  the  nomination  of 
some  other  man  that  represented  his  cause.  He  put  Taft 
up  and  he  wanted  to  show  that  he  could  put  him  down, 
but  he  had  the  wrong  bull  by  the  horns'.  And  being  dis¬ 
appointed  in  this,  he  proposes  to  tear  the  Republican  party 
asunder.  Even  now  if  he  was  sincere  in  the  advocacy 
of  his  cause  he  would  put  up  some  other  man,  but  he  can’t 
get  the  “I  am  that  I  am”  idea  out  of  his  head,  and,  of 
course,  the  Bull  Moosers  -dare  not  contrary  him.  He  is  the 
wonderful  great  and  shining  star  around  which  these  little 
satellites  are  zipping.  He  will  have  acomplished  his  pur¬ 
pose — thaj:  of  defeating  the  Republican  party  in  state  and 
nation.  After  the  election  in  November,  the  bottom  and 

i 

sides  and  top  will  have  dropped  out  of  the  Bull  Moose, 
party,  and  Mr.  Bull  Moose  and  Teddy  will  die  a  simultane¬ 
ous  death,  and  both  will  be  buried  in  the  political  potters’ 
field  side  by  each,  as  they  had  run. 

Personally,  with  me,  Roosevelt  was  a  great  man  up 
till  the  day  he  threw  his  hat  in  the  ring;  since  that  day 
to  me  he  has  appeared  to  be  the  greatest  “frost”  that  ever 
shot  the  shoots.  I  am  sorry  that  all  my  admiration  has 
been  turned  into  disgust  and  hate.  Nothing  that  he  can 
ever  do  will  restore  my  confidence  in  him.  I  believe  him 
to  be  a  political  highwayman.  I  feel  in  my  own  mind  that 
he  has  designs  on  this  government.  That  unless  we  crush 
him  he  will  become  as  an  Alexander  or  a  Peter  the  Great. 

I  am  positive  in  my  own  mind  that  if  he  could  restore 
himself  to  power  again  that  he  would  roll  this  earth  in 
blood.  That  he  would  go  on  a  conquest  of  the  world,  and 
that  is -  why  he  is  now’  and  has  been  advocating  most 
•strenuously  the  building  up  for  this  government  the  strong¬ 
est  navy  in  the  world.  He’s  a  war  dog.  He  will  do  some¬ 
thing,  that  no  other  man  has  ever  done  or  he  won’t  do 
anything.  You  say  it  is  impossible  for  a  single  man  to 
conquer  the  world  again.  I  say  it  is  just  as  easy  now  as 
it  ever  was.  The  facilities  of  warfare  have  kept  pace  with 
human  progress  and  population.  It’s  just  as  easy  to  man- 


6 


age  a  big  business  as  it  is  a  little  one  if  you  ve  got  the 
wheels  in  your  head  and  know  how  to  pull  the  strings.  I 
say  we’re  moving  fast.  The  way  to  keep  a  dog  from  going 
mad  in  August  is  to  kill  him  in  July.  The  way  to  keep 
Teddy  from  going  mad  is  to  kill  him  now  and  bury  him 
deep  in  November.  That  Mexico  and  Canada  would  be 
annexed  to  the  United  States,  and1  that  war  with  Japan 
would  be  inevitable,  and  once  having  dominion  over  the 
entire  Western  hemisphere  and  the  Ottoman  Empire  con¬ 
quered,  continental  Europe  would  quake  and  crumble,  and 
as  Rome  was  once  the  mistress  of  the  whole  world,  Wash¬ 
ington  city  would  again  be,  and  the  West  would  dominate 
the  East,  and  history  would  repeat  itself. 

How  can  Roosevelt’s  word  be  worth  anything?  How 
can  the  people  trust  him  when  he  has  gone  back  on  every¬ 
thing  that  he  said  on  the  night  of  November  8,  1904,  when 
it  wras  clear  that  he  was  elected,  he  vowed  that  he  would 
never  again  be  a  candidate  for  the  presidency;  that  he 
will  have  served  two  terms,  and  that  nothing  nor  anybody 
could  ever  persuade  him  to  run  again.  That  was  one  of 
the  very  things  that  made  him  so  popular  with  the  people. 
He  was  a  man  that  took  with  the  people.  His  unconven¬ 
tional  management,  his  “short  cuts”,  his  avoid¬ 
ance  of  long  introductions  and  circumlocutions  made 
him  popular,  and  he  seemed  to  be  a  man  o-f  the  people  re¬ 
gardless  of  creed  or  doctrine,  and  at  the  expiration  of  his 
second  term  he  still  said  he  had  served  tw^o  terms  and  that 
he  was  done.  That’s  what  enshrined  him  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  but  he  belittled  himself,  his  administration,  and 
the  people,  when  he  “steam  rolled”  the  nomination  of  Mr. 
Taft;  wrhile  he  was  willing  at  that  time  to  quit,  he  still 
proposed  to  dictate  the  policies  of  the  country,  and  the 
nomination  of  his  party  candidate.  He  first  thought  of 
putting  up  Senator  Root,  then  Secretary  of  State,  but  later 
decided  that  Root,  being  frqm  his  own  state  (N.  Y.),  he 
would  prefer  to  put  him  in  the  Senate,  -which  he  did. 
There  is  no  question  but  what  Root  is  a  far  greater  states¬ 
man  than  Taft,  and  he  was  the  man  to  have  had  the  nomi¬ 
nation,  but  that  didn’t  quite  suit  Teddy.  He  couldn’t 
steam  roll  Taft  for  Senator  in  Ohio  as  well  as  he  could 
Root,  from  his  own  state.  So  he  decided  to  make  Taft 
president  and  Root,  United  States  Senator,  and  so  he  hav¬ 
ing  done  all  these  things  was  the  boss  of  all  bosses,  and. 


7 


now,  because  he  can’t  still  wear  the  belt  and  kick  people 
around,  and  their  hound  dogs,  too,  he  proopses  to  -not  only 
tear  up  the  party,  but  to  literally  tear  the  bone  out  of  the 
earth.  When  he  went  to  Africa  he  got  off  the  job  a  little, 
and  the  boys  got  to  running  the  thing  over  at  W  ashing- 
ton  a  little  on  their  own  hook,  and  when  Teddy  returned 
they  had  gotten  to  be  great  big  fellows  and  sorter  smart, 
and  so  there  came  a  break  between  “me  and  my  policies” 
and  “my  boys”.  The  old  man,  as  it  were,  had  moved  to 
town  and  the  boys  had  learned  to  manage  the  farmland 
when  he  came  back  bossing  around — hell  was  to  pay,  and 
the  further  it  went  the  worse  it  got  and  the  more  deter¬ 
mined  the  old  man  was  to  have  the  farm  back,  because 
he  had  the  deed  to  it,  just  like  Roosevelt  thought  he  had 
to  the  United  States  and  the  people.  And  the  very  laws 
that  he  put  through  Congress  while  he  was  president,  and 
the  laws  that  he  enforced  with  his  big  stick,  to  his  mind, 
became  obsolete  in  Taft’s  administration.  The  Sherman 
law  was  a  dandy  under  his  administration  but  ought  to 
be  repealed  under  Taft.  Taft’s  manner  of  prosecuting  the 
trusts  under  the  anti-trust  law  was  a  horrible  bungle  to 
hear  Teddy  tell  it.  In  coming  at  Taft  that  way  was  the 
way  he  had  of  announcing  his  candidacy  about  a  year  be¬ 
fore  he  threw  his  hat  in  the  ring. 

If  Roosevelt  had  stuck  to  his  word  in  not  being  a  can¬ 
didate  again,  and  had  done  what  he  could  to  make  Taft’s 
administration  a  success,  the  people  would  not  have  become 
dissatisfied  with  Taft,  and  no  question  Taft  would  have 
succeeded  himself  again,  but  it  has  all  come  about  by  that 
damned  egotistic  selfishness  of  Roosevelt.  Talk  about 
bosses!  He’s  the  “cap  sheaf”  and  the  ring  leader  and  boss 
of  all  the  bosses.  He  would  boss  God  Almighty  if  he  could. 
He  would  make  the  sun  stand  still  and  turn  the  moon  and 
stars  to  blood  if  he  could.  If  he  had  the  powrer  to  make, 
every  knee  would  bow  and  every  tongue  confess  him.  He 
loves  to  come  with  shout  and  groan  and  clarion  blast,  and 
the  hoarse  echo  of  the  thunder  gun.  He  loves  to  ride  on 
the  wings  of  the  wind. 

What  do  you  think  of  an  ex-president  that  has  served 
two  terms  that  will  have  them  hold  his  train  for  one  hour 
and  twenty-nine  minutes,  188  miles  away1,  when  he  is  plung¬ 
ing  1,000  miles  to  make  a  great  speech  in  the  interest  of  a 
great  cause,  in  order  that  1,600  girl  clerks  might  be  there  to 


8 


swell  the  crowd?  Does  that  look  like  sincerity  and  earnest¬ 
ness?  •  Imagine  if  you  can  a  man  occupying  the  highest 
position  of  any  individual  in  the  world  humiliating  himself 
like  that.  Roosevelt  vowed  and  affirmed,  up  to  the  very  day 
he  threwr  his  hat  in  the  ring,  that  he  would  not  solicit  the 
nomination,  and  w'ould  take  it  only  if  it  was  tendered  him. 
How  has  it  looked  since  then?  He  has  not  only  solicited  it 
but  has  contrived  every  means  fair  or  false  to  get  it.  Never 

•  •*  g 

before  in  the  history  of  God’s  Kingdom  did  a  man  ever  make 
such  a  strenuous  effort  to  get  something  that  he  had  no 
right  to.  If  after  this  humiliating,  undignified,  sickening, 
nauseating  effort,  he  can  retain  the  respectability  of  the 
people,  then  God  pity  the  people.  Roosevelt  now  courts 
every  issue,  every  cause,  every  theory  that  he  thinks  is  a 
popular  one.  He  now  courts  the  very  thing  that  he  crushed 
when  he  was  president.  It’s  God,  anything-  for  votes.  When 
Oklahoma  was  waiting  her  constitution,  Teddy  sent  Taft 
down  there  to  get  them  to  not  put  the  recall  or  the  initia¬ 
tive  in  their  constitution.  What  do  you  know  about  him 
now?  Did  he  say  anything  about  woman  suffrage  when  he 
was  on  the  inside?  How  about  him  now?  What  did  he 
care  for  Illinois  spending  $20,000,000.00  to  initiate  the  deep 
waterway  lakes  to  the  gulf  while  he  was  president?  He’s 
merely  sparking  us  suckers  for  our  votes  now.  Every  thing 
he  says,  and  every  thing  he  does,  he  merely  gives  himself 
away.  “The  murderer  can  not  keep  his  secret.”  It  is  a 
psychological1  law  that  no  man  can  make  others  believe  what 
he  himself  dbes  not  believe.  Earnestness  flashes  in  the  eye; 
it  beams  in  the  face,  and  burns  on  the  brow.  If  a  man  be¬ 
lieves  what  he  says  his  actions  will  prove  it.  Sincerity 
proves  itself  wherever  it  goes,  and  an  honest  man  is  the 
noblest  work  of  God.  But  a  dishonest  one  is  the  most 
ignoble.  If  Teddy  can  fool  the  people  let  him  go  on,  but  he 
can’t  fool  me.  He  says  he’s  fighting  the  millionaires  and  the 
plutocrats.  But  we  notice  that  McCormick  and  Perkins, 
and  a  few  other  trust  magnates  are  his  “pushers.”  If  you 
want  to  know  the  truth  let  him  have  his  say  and  then  take 
the  opposite.  If  I  was  a  Republican  or  ever  had  pretended 
to  be,  I  should  hate  to  be  caught  dead,  or  any  other  way, 
with  the  Bull  Moosers  next  week  in  Chicago.  No  doubt  the 
standard  will  be  set  high  and  the  mesh  of  the  net  will  be 
made  big  to  let  the  little  fish  out.  Nobody  but  the  pure  in 
heart  will  be  allowed  to  vote  the  Bull  Moose  ticket  next  fall. 
Oh,  no!  There  wron’t  be  any  socialist  vote  that  ticket.  Oh, 


9 


no!  And  not  an  anarchist  will  vote  for  Teddy.  If  anything 
should  happen  to  cause  the  party  to  fall  through  with  or 
that  Teddy  should  fail  to  materialize,  then  just  let  them 
nominate  a  figurative  ticket,  just  let  them  worship  the 
memory  of  great  men  and  say,  if  it  were  possible,  we  would 
have  Benedict  Arnold  at  the  head  and  Aaron  Burr  at  the 
tail,  and  then  our  great  cause  would  be  personified. 

My  dear  fellow  citizens,  I  appeal  to  you,  in  the  language 
of  Bob  Ingersoll:  “We  are  again  engaged  in  the  great 

struggle  for  national  life.  We  hear  the  sound  of  prepara¬ 
tion,  the  music  of  the  boisterous  drums  and  the  silvery 
voices  of  the  heroic  bugles;  we  see  thousands  of  assem¬ 
blages  and  hear  the  appeals  of  orators,  and  in  these  as¬ 
semblages  we  see  all  the  dead  whose  dust  we  have  covered 
with  flowers.”  And  again  we  see  Concord,  Lexington  and 
Bunker  Hill.  We  see  Washington  crossing  the  Delaware 
and  at  Valley  Forge.  And  we  see  the  heroes  of  ’61  march¬ 
ing  down  the  streets  of  the  cities,  through  the  towns  and 
across  the  prairies,  down  to  the  fields  of  glory  to  do  and  to 
die  for  the  eternal  right.  And  we  see  the  hand  of  Lincoln 
writing  that  divine  enspired  and  immortal  document,  “strik¬ 
ing  the  shackles”  from  the  hands  and  feet  of  four  million 
slaves.  “We  see  the  slave  on  the  auction  block  and  the 
whipping  post,  and  where  all  was  want  and  crime  and 
cruelty  and  fetters  we  now  see  the  faces  of  the  free.”  The 
past  rises  before  us.  Shall  we  tolerate  and  coddle  a  man 
.who  tramples  beneath  his  feet  the  most  sacred  of  America’s 
precedents  and  institutions?  Forbid  it,  my  dear  countrymen. 
If  Roosevelt  should  ascend  again  to  the  presidency  it  will  be 
a  dark  hour  for  this  nation.  In  his  desperation  and  mad 
insatiable  ambition,  if  once  again  he  gets  his  hand  at  the 
helm  of  our  Ship  of  State,  he  will  drive  her  at  break  neck 
speed  like  Capt.  Smith  did  the  Titanic,  crash,  crash,  crash, 
into  the  iceberg,  down,  down,  down  to  the  bottom  of  the 
sea,  careless  of  warnings,  death,  hell,  or  the  grave. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


Springfield,  Ill.,  Aug.  28,  1912. 

Springfield  Journal: 

To  the  Editor — I  want  to  ask  the  question,  when  did 
Roosevelt  find  out  about  the  two  old  parties  being  so  rot¬ 
ten?  He  was  perfectly  willing  to  run  in  the  old  rotten 
Republican  party  up  until  about  June  22d.  I  winder  how 
he  found  out  that  it  was  so  rotten  about  that  time.  I 


10 


wonder  why  he  didn’t  organize  a  new  party  before  that* 
and  run  as  its  standard  bearer.  Yes,  it  was  rotten  up  to 
that  time,  but,  it  sloughed  off  some  of  its  rottenness  about 
that  time.  I  wonder  if  Roosevelt  thinks  he  can  say  any 

d - d  old  thing  that  he’s  a  mind  to,  and  we  semi-barbaric 

Arabs  of  Illinois,  and  other  half  civilized  states,  catch  on 
to  nothing.  If  Teddy  had  received  the  nomination 
in  June  at  Chicago,  then  to  his  mind  there  would  have  been 
no  need  of  a  third  party.  If  there  was  a  demand  for  a 
third  party  from  the  people,  the  outcome  of  the  Chicago 
June  convention  should  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
You  know,  my  dear  friend,  as  God  Almighty  knows,  every 
right  thinking  man  in  the  United'  States  knows  that  this 
third  party  is  a  one  man  affair.  Suppose  for  a  minute 
that  Teddy  Roosevelt  had  been  nominated,  would 
there  have  been  any  need  of  a  third  party?  Not  to  Teddy 
Roosevelt’s  mind.  The  demand  for  a  third  party  would 
have  been  exactly  the  same.  Therefore,  then  the  third 
party  was  organized  for  Teddy  and  the  rest  of  the  disap¬ 
pointed  office  seekers  in  Illinois  and  throughout  the  Union. 
It  is  a  band  of  political  disappointments  preying  upon  the 
credulity  of  the  people. 

There  is  not  a  single  plank  in  the  Progressive  plat¬ 
form  that  has  not  been  agitated  by  some  one  else  before 
the  Progressive  party  was  ever  heard  tell  of.  Election  of 
United  States  Senators  by  direct  vote.  Is  Teddy  or  any 
of  his  clique  original  on  that?  That  is  an  issue  that  has 
been  discussed  at  country  school  lyceums  for  the  past  ten 
years.  I  say  there  is  not  a  single  plank  in  the  new  party’s 
platform  but  what  is  an  old  one  to  the  people.  Somebody 
else  has  beat  Roosy  to  it  on  every  corner,  we  have  the 
proof  to  show  it,  but  why  should  we  elaborate  on  Roose¬ 
velt’s  appropriating  every  popular  movement  of  someone 
else  to  his  own  personal  honor  and  advantage?  His  great¬ 
est  originality  is  his  ability  to  appropriate  all  things  good 
and  great  to  himself  and  to  throw  the  bad  and  dishonor 
on  some  one  else.  We-  will  admit  that  he  is  original  in 
some  things.  He  is  original  in  the  personification  of  the 
pronoun  “I”. 

♦ 

He  has  allowed  other  people  to  labor  while  he  enters 
into  their  labors.  His  principle  is  to  gather  while  others 
sow.  His  ambition  is  to  reap  while  others  sow  and  culti¬ 
vate. 

I  say  that  he  has  taken  advantage  of  the  popularity 

11 


he  had  when  he  was  president.  Every  dog  has  his  day, 
and  so  does  every  man.  Roosevelt  was  designed  to  take 
Mr.  McKinley’s  place  when  McKinley  was  assassinated. 
And  the  people  were  willing  to  elect  him  again  as  proof 
of  their  good 'faith  in  his  earnestness  and  sincerity,  and  as 
a  meteor  blazes  across  the  skies  and  lights  up  the  world 
for  a  little  while  and  falls- into  the  ocean,  Roosevelt  can 
no  more  return  to  the  effulgence  of  his  past  glory,  than 
the  meteor  that  blazed  across  the  heavens  to  return  no  more 
forever. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 

•  _ _  _ 

<  -  J 

THE  EX-PRESIDENCY. 

The  ex-president  of  the  United  States  occupies  the  most 
peculiar  position  of  any  man  in  the  world.  Having  reached 
the  highest  position  and  having  gained  the  greatest  honor 
of  any  man  in  the  world,  he  does  not  know  exactly  how 
to  conduct  himself  afterward.  His  conduct  and  actions  are 
controlled  by  his  temperament.  He  may  treat  his  position 
in  a  dignified  way  and  he  may  embarrass  it.  He  may  ele¬ 
vate  the  people  in  his  position  and  he  may  degrade  them. 
The  ex-president,  if  his  administration  was  not  fraught 
with  any  great  calamity,  through  his  fault,  should  be  of 
all  men  among  us  most  honored.  He  should  be  the  junior 
father  of  his  country  and  honored  and  revered  wherever 
he  may  be  or  wherever  he  may  go.  Every  individual  of 
the  United  States  should1  be  his  personal  friend,  and  he 
should  be  the  friend  of  every  individual. 

It  is  not  becoming  of  an  ex-president,  especially  if  he 
has  served  two  terms,  to  meddle  in  politics.  It  is  his  duty 
to  take  a  deep  interest  in  all  public  affairs  regardless  of 

9 

politics  or  party.  The  ex-president,  by  virtue  of  his  hav¬ 
ing  gained  the  highest  position  through  politics,  should 
be  by  that  virtue  above  politics.  He  should  be,  as  it  were, 
a  father  to  whom  all  could  go  for  advice.  His  position  is 
a  dangerous  one,  having  reached  the  highest  round  in  the 
ladder;  how  can  he  go  higher  without  falling?  The  ex¬ 
presidency  carries  with  it  a  dignity  and  an  honor  to  which 
the  people  are  entitled,  then  the  man  who  holds  that  posi¬ 
tion  is  in  more  danger  and  peril  than  the  president  of  the 
United  States.  The  ex-president  then  should  scorn  to  seek 
office,  provided  he  has  served  two  terms.  If  he  is  called 
again,  it  should  be  by  acclamation  of  the  people.  While 


12 


it  is  most  undignified  for  him  to  seek  office  he  should  be 
willing,  and  it  is  his  duty  if  the  office  seeks  him,  as  it  did 
John  Quincy  Adams,  to  serve  in  the  lower  house  or  senate 
of  the  United  States.  While  the  ex- president  is  as  vulner¬ 
able  as  any  other  man  he  bears  a  dignified  honor  that  no 
other  man  can  hold.  How  impossible  it  would  be  for  us 
to  think  of  Lincoln,  Garfield  or  McKinley  running  the  third 
time  for  the  presidency!  They  would  not  only  not  have 
made  a  strenuous  effort  to  get  it  again,  but  would  abhor  the 
thought  of  running  again.  They  would  have  had  every¬ 
thing  to  lose  and  nothing  to>  gain.  Why  should  a  man 
pluck  the  laurels  from  his  crown  one  by  one  till  he  looks 
like  a  tree  struck  by  lightning?  It  is  not  his  loss  alone — 
the  people  have  lost.  What  an  awful  example  the  present 
object  lesson  is  to  the  youth  of  the  country!  We  have 
been  disgraced.  It  will  take  a  hundred  years  to  live  it 
down. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


Springeld,  Ill.,  September  4,  1912. 

To  the  Evening  News:  $ 

Since  I  have  accepted  Mr.  E.  E.  Greenhalgh’s  challenge 
I  have  heard  no  more  from  him  or  any  of  the  Bull  skunk 
Moosers.  He  must  be  on  the  defensive  like  the  Bull  Moose 
himself  now.  Wonder  if  he’s  hehrd  from  Vermont.  Just 
tell  him  that  “you  saw  me,  but  you  didn’t  see  me  saw.” 
I  challenge  Mr.  Greenhalgh  or  any  other  Bull  Mooser  in  the 
U.  S.  to  meet  me  on  any  platform  with  a  $10,000  purse  and 
leave  it  to  God  Almighty  and  the  people.  I  received  a  wire 
this  morning  that  when  Teddy  crossed  the  Mississippi  he 
turned  into  a  Bull  Moocher. 

Say,  why  didn’t  Teddy  go  after  Penrose  and  Archbold 
before?  His  retaliation  don’t  look  good  to  me.  If  there  was 
nothing  to  it  he  would  ignore  them.  They’ve  got  him  going. 
He’s  on  the  defensive  now.  Before  the  senate  committee 
will  have  adjourned,  this  fall,  he’ll  be  snapping  an*d  biting 
like  a  wolf  at  bay.  I  say  he’s  in  the  hole  and  will  have  to 
take  water.  He  is  the  most  desperate  character  that  ever 
came  down  the  political  boulevard.  If  he’s  an  “upstart,”  as 
President  McKinley  said  he  was,  I  will  say  that  he’s  not 
much  of  a  finisher.  He’s  a  “has  been”  not  an  “is’er”.  Of 

all  the  d - d  fourflushers  that  ever  came  down  the  pike 

he’s  the  he.  He’s  a  disgrace  to  God  and  humanity.  It’ll 
take  a  thousand  years  for  the  American  people  to  live  down 


his  degeneracy.  His  is  a  retrogresion  not  progression. 
He  having  been  elevated  by  the  people  to  the  highest 
pedestal  of  honor  and  fame,  is  now  and  will  continue  to 
shoot  the  shoots  till  he  hits  the  very  glazed  bottom  of  hell. 
He  is  not  worthy  of  respectable  argument.  He’s  a  pirate 
on  the  high  seas  of  politics  and  subject  to  no  law  or  con¬ 
sideration.  He  gives  no  quarter  and  expects  none.  At  the 
last  he  wiill  say — no  American  is  my  friend.  How  can  a 
man  with  a  normal  brain  antagonize  the  people  as  he  does? 
Society  is  torn  up.  There  is  no  law  henceforth  by  which 
a  political  campaign  may  be  carried  on.  The  bushwhackers 
of  the  ’60s  are  a  credit  to  the  present  campaign.  Who 
knows  just  where  he’s  at.  There  is  only  one  thing  that 
each  of  us  ought  to  know  and  that  is — to  know  that  you’re 
against  Roosevelt. 

I  consider  it  my  duty  to  fight  Theodore  Roosevelt  as 
much  as  I  wuld  have  considered  it  my  duty  to  have  should¬ 
ered  a  musket  if  I  had  been  here  when  Sumter  and 
Donelson  were  fired  upon.  This  one  man  government  has 

J  , 

got  to  lie  down.  Depotism  shall  not  leap  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  She  shall  die  on  h£r  own  shores.  Lexington,  Con¬ 
cord  and  Bunker  Hill  shall  not  have  been  in  vain.  America’s 
freedom  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  No  one  man  shall 
dictate  the  policy  of  this  country.  It  shall  now  and  for¬ 
ever  continue  to  be  a  “government  of  the  people  for  and  by 
the  people.’’ 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


Springfield,  Ill.,  Sept.  24,  1912. 

Illinois  State  Register — 

There  is  a  Progressive  party  in  the  United  States,  but 
it  is  not  the  one  that  Teddy  Roosevelt  is  leading.  There 
is  progression  on  every  hand  in  the  United  States,  but 
Roosevelt  does  not  personify  it.  While  he  is  posing  as  its 
leader,  lie  is  now  and  has  done  more  to  impede  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  progression  than  any  other  man.  The  cause  that 
the  so-called  Progressive  party  represents  is  entirely  lost 
in  its  leader.  The  very  fact  that  he  never  opened  his  head 
when  he  was  president,  in  defense  of  the  progressive  cause, 
proves  conclusively  that  he  is  nothing  but  a  fourflusher 
now.  He  has  disgraced  the  cause  by  trying  to  reap  when 
others  have  sown.  Others  have  labored  in  the  cause,  but 
he  proposes  to  enter  into  their  labors.  How,  in  the  name 
of  the  Most  High,  can  we  believe  what  a  man  says  when  his/ 


14 


actions  prove  the  contrary?  Who,  under  heaven,  can  be¬ 
lieve  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  sincere  in  what  he  is  now 
preaching'?  He  had  the  opportunity  to  nominate  Hadley 
at  Chicago  in  June — why  didn’t  he?  Because  he  wanted 
Teddy.  He  has  lost  sight  of  any  cause  in  himself.  If 
Roosevelt  can  hypnotize  the  people  into  electing  him  again, 
then  he  can  hypnotize  Congress  into  doing  anything  he 
wants,  and  that  means  that  he  would  go  on  a  conquest  of 
the  world.  Verily  I  believe  that  is  why  he  has  and  is  now 
advocating  the  largest  navy  in  the  world.  He  does  not  care 
to  be  president  again  just  for  the  sake  of  being  president, 
a  little  thing  like  that  does  not  appeal  to  him.  And  he 
says  now  that  he  does  not  want  to  be  a  king.  We  will 
admit  that.  The  w*ord  king  is  too  common  a  term  for  him. 
What  he  wrants  is  to  be  something  that  no  other  man  in  the 
world’s  history  has  ever  been — that  of  a  Western  conqueror. 
He  has  been  president  twice,  there  can  be  no  more  fame 
in  that — the  presidency  is  only  a  toy  to  him  now.  What 
he  wants  now  is  to  conquer  or  die  (and  he’ll  die  in  No¬ 
vember).  In  wrecking  the  Republican  party  he  has  be¬ 
come  the  most  desperate  of  any  character  known  in  the 
annals  of  political  history. 

A  man  that  will  turn  and  wreck  the  party  that  took 
him  from  a  subordinate  in  the  army  and  made  him  com¬ 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  crowned  him 
with  the  laurels  of  gratitude  and  hope,  only  in  the  gift  of 
the  greatest  of  God’s  peoples;  a  man  that  will  wreck  the 
party  that  was  builded  upon  the  foundation  of  “human 
liberty,”  that  phrase  without  which  “all  other  words  are 
vain,  was  born  of  intellectual  slavery  in  the  feudal  ages 
of  thought.”  The  conception  in  which  Abe  Lincoln’s 
Emancipation  Proclamation  was  born;  the  cause  for  which 
two  million  noble  and  brave  men  suffered  and  died;  the 
party  that  carried  the  nation  safely  through  the  reconstruc¬ 
tion  period.  The  party  of  Lincoln,  Grant,  Sherman,  Gar¬ 
field,  Thomas  B.  Reed  and  James  G.  Blaine.  I  say  the  man 
who  will  destroy  the  party  of  these  great  men  and  the 
party  that  elevated  him  to  the  highest  position  in  the  gift 
of  the  world — will  do  anything — there’s  nothing  too  rich  for 
his  blood.  But  remember,  my  dear  fellow  citizens,  the  wreck 
of  the  Republican  party  is  nothing  compared  to  the  wreck  of 
a  nation.  If  this  man  Roosevelt  is  permitted  again  to  take 
up  the  presidency,  he  will  drive  our  “Ship  of  State”  at  break¬ 
neck  speed,  libe  Captain  Smith  did  the  Titanic,  crash,  crash, 


15 


< 


crash,  into  the  icebergs,  down,  down,  down,  to  the  bottom 
of  the  sea,  regardless  of  warnings,  death,  hell  or  the  grave. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


•  Springfield,  Ill.,  Sept.  27,  1912. 

I  want  to  ask  this  question  of  the  Bull  Moose  and  the 
Bull  Moosers:  Is  third  termism  progression?  It  is  not 
only  not  progression  but  retrogression.  A  man  who  will 
advocate  that  the  precedent  established  against  the  third 
term  means  three  terms  in  succession,  is  not  only  not  a  pro¬ 
gressive  but  the  personification  of  retrogression.  If  that 
precedent  means  what  Roosevelt  says  it  does,  then  there 
is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  terms  a  man  may  hold,  just 

so  he  don’t  hold  three  in  succession.  Then  a  man  can  start 

^  • 

in  when  he  is  36  years  of  age  and  by  the  time  he  is  76,  can 
have  served  32  years  as  president. 

If  a  president  at  the  expiration  of  two  terms  is  allowed 
to  name  his  successor  as  Teddy  did  Taft,  and  as  he  wants 
to  dictate  now,  what  in  the  name  of  God  Almighty  may 
we  expect  will  become  of  this  nation  under  the  indomi¬ 
table  will  of  Theodore  Roosevelt?  I  say  by  the  gods  if  there 
is  anything  to  the  American  people,  now  as  there  has  been  in 
the  past,  they  will  cut  Theodore  Roosevelt  down  like  a 
withered  tree.  My  life  is  worthless,  but  I  offer  it  on  the  altar 
of  my  country  now. 

Taking  a  glance  back  across  the  history  of  the  earth 
we  can  see  a  few  Roosevelts  who  advocated  the  cause  they 
represented  with  the  sword  and  the  bayonet.  What  Croesus 
could  not  conquer  with  the  sword  he  bought  with,  money. 

Shall  we  be  prone  to  forget  that  for  which  liberty  we  now 
'  enjoy,  our  brave  fathers  suffered  and  died?  Shall  we  allow 
that  liberty  perish  by  the  hand  of  a  modern  Peter  the  Great? 

Talk  about  strikes.  Let  the  American  people  now 
strike.  Kill  it  in  its  incipiency.  Let  the  people  hit  the 
ground  so  hard  with  Roosevelt  in  November  that  it  will 
be  a  thousand  years  before  another  Monster  the  Great  will 
ask  for  a  third  term. 

Granting  that  Teddy  did  a  few  things  when  he  was 
president  we  have  lost  all  respect  we  ever  had  for  him 
through  his  desire  to  rule  once  more.  Down  him  now  and 
down  him  forever  and  the  cause  that  he  pretends  to  repre- 
sent  will,  in  the  future,  be  the  cause  of  the  people. 

There  is  progression  everywhere  and  on  every  hand. 

This  is  a  progressive  nation.  The  American  people  are  a 


16 


progressive  people,  but  it  shall  never  be  carried  to  victory 
by  a  retrogressive.  Let  the  cause  represent  the  man  and 
the  man  will  personify  the  cause.  Aaron  Burr  lacked  just 
one  vote  in  the  electoral  college,  being  elected  .president  of 
the  United  States.  He  proved  a  traitor  to  his  country. 
His  personal  ambition  was  greater  than  hi&  love  for  his 
country. 

Benedict  Arnold  loved  fame  and  honor  better  than  the 
cause  he  represented.  He  died  an  ignominious  death,  hated 
by  all  that  loved  liberty  and  freedom^  Roosevelt  hugs  the 
people  to  him  with  one  arm,  plants  kisses  on  their  cheek, 
and  with  the  other  hand  drives  the  dagger  of  treachery 
to  the  hilt  between  the  shoulder  blades. 

He  has  with  all  cunning  avoided  any  reference  to  the 
third  term  issue  throughout  the  campaign.  I  am  positive 
that  he  is  a  menace  to  the  nation.  If  I  did  not  feel  it  I 
could  not  afford  to  take  the  time  to  write  it.  Why  should  I 
drop  my  daily  avocation  to  write  against  Roosevelt  when 
my  daily  bread  depends  on  my  daily  labors?  Why  should  I 
single  out  a  pian  and  go  after  his  scalp  if  I  did  not  think 
him  a  dangerous  character  to  the  nation?  Am  I  seeking 
office?  I  have  never  in  my  life  run  for  office,  and  I  never 
expect  to.  I  am  not  writing  under  the  direction  of  any 
political  organization.  I  am  a  Democrat.  I  am  a  progres¬ 
sive  Democrat,  and  if  I  was  a  Republican  I  would  be  a 
progrssive  Republican,  but  I  would  not  destroy  the  Repub¬ 
lican  party  because  I  was  a  progressive  Republican.  If 
there  is  anything  to  these  issues,  let  them  be  fought  out 
within  the  party  lines.  *  The  Democrats  won  their  cause 
at  Baltimore,  but  the  Republicans  lost  at  Chicago.  If  the 
Democrats  had  lost  at  Baltimore,  wTould  some  man  have 
tried  to  exterminate  the  party — never  on  your  life.  We 
would  have  “licked  our  flint”  and  tried  it  again.  If  we 
had  lost  there  was  no  three  termer  with  his  hat  in  the  ring 
to  blot  us  out  of  existence — not  even  a  two  termer  or  a  one 
termer.  We  had  never  been  there,  once  is  enough  for  us. 

While  I  shall  accept  the  Democratic  platform  in  this 
campaign  as  written  and  adopted,  as  a  Democrat  I  am 
opposed  to  the  one  term  plank.  Six  years  is  too  long  for 
a  bad  man  to  serve,  and  eight  is  not  too  long  for  a  good 
man,  but  let  any  man  dare  to  ask  the  third  term.  If  the 
people  shall  rule,  let  them  hold  this  sacred,  unwritten  law 
in  their  hands.  I  am  not  in  favor  of  putting  it  on  the 
statute,  I  am  in  favor  of  the  people  stigmatising  •  with 

i  •  17 


ignominious  defeat  any  “dare  devil”  who  has  the  nerve,  the 
gall,  the  face,  the  audacity  to  ask  for  a  third  term.  Even 
if  a  man  has  not  served  two  full  terms,  three  and  one-half 
years  by  succession,  and  four  years  by  election  is  enough 
for  any  one  man  among  tens  of  thousands  who  are  as 
competent  as  himself.  Let  the  people  rule,  and  if  they 
say  three  terms,  I  will  lay  down  my  pen  and  take  to  the 
tall  timber  and  never  come  back. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


CALLS  ROOSEVELT  FIRST  U.  S.  DICTATOR. 


James  H.  Kirby  Gives  His  Views  of  the  Republican  Situation 
— Says  “Dark  Horse”  Party’s  Only  Hope. 

Springfield,  Ill.,  June  13. — Mr.  Editor,  and  to  whom  it  may 
concern:  As  a  Democrat  I  wish  to  express  my  views  on  the 
Republican  situation.  While  I  am  a  real  estate  man  just 
now,  but  have  previously  always  been  a  farmer,  and  have 
always  prided  myself  in  the  tranquillity  of  home  life,  having 
never  run  for  public  office  and  hope  never  to,  am  now  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  the  political  situation. 

It  is  said  that  the  death  of  Ann  Rutledge  gave  Lincoln 
to  the  nation.  However  true  or  false  this  may  be,  wThen  a 
man  loses  out  in  love  he  must  seek  other  fields  for  the 
hopes  of  his  ambitions;  While  all  the  Republican  candi¬ 
dates  have  been  hiding  behind  Lincoln  and  have  been  hold¬ 
ing  him  up  to  the  people  as  their  only  parallel,  I  will  make 
only  one  comparison  between  him  and  myself.  My  wife,  my 
first  and  only  love,  sleeps  in  the  same  lot  with  Ann  Rutledge 
in  the  beautiful  Oakland  cemetery  at  Petersburg,  Ill.;  and 
her  death  has  taken  my  mind  off  of  the  success  and  tran¬ 
quillity  of  home  life  to  that  of  the  welfare  of  the  na'tion.  But 
to  the  Republican  situation.  The  wffiole  thing  seems  to 
have  been  a  farce.  Regularly,  Taft  was  the  logical  candidate 
for  the  party.  Although  his  administration  has  been  a 
failure  in  many  respects,  and  he  has  not  proven  himself  a 
popular  president,  if  Roosevelt  had  not  come  out  for 
the  nomination  Taft  would  have  been  the  nominee.  But 
now  lit  seems  impossible  for  either  to  be.  It  seems  now  at 
the  seat  of  battle  that  the  wires  are  being  manipulated  for 
a  “dark  horse.”  There  is  no  other  hope  for  the  Republican 
party  to  make  a  dignified  stand  only  in  the  nomination  of 
some  other  man.  La  Follette  can  not  be  a  compromise  as 
he  is  too  progressive.  Root  is  too  much  of  a  “stand  pat” 


18 


Republican  to  “split  the  difference.”  So  who  is  he  to  be? 
Teddy’s  crowd  can’t  go  Hughes.  So  trot  him  out,  ye  men  of 
Waterloo,  and  let  us  take  a  shot  at  him. 

« 

Why  should  Teddy  squeal  at  the  steam  roller  with  the 
throttle  wide  open  in  Chicago  when  that  has  been  his  game 
from  the  very  first?  No  man  since  the  landing  of  Colum¬ 
bus  has  ever  run  the  steam  roller  over  his  political  clods 
more  than  Theodore  Roosevelt.  While  no  man  ever  occu¬ 
pied  the  same  position  in  the  niche  of  fame  as  he  previous  to 
his  attack  of  Taft  in  the  Outlook  in  February,  last,  no  man 
has  ever  sunk  so  fast  in  the  estimation  of  conservative 
people.  That  was  his  announcement  for  the  third  term.  He 
didn’t  intend  to  wait  for  seven  little  2x4  governors  of  the 
“wild  and1  wooly  west”  to  wire  him  their  approval.  What 
if  he  had?  Eleven  governors  of  far  larger  calibre  wired 
Taft  at  the  same  time  urging  him  to  run. 

The  trouble  is  this:  Teddy  was  too  young  to  lie  down. 
OnljT  52  years  of  age,  young  and  chock  full  of  political  hell. 
He  now  says  he  meant  three  terms  in  succession.  Well,  then, 
all  right.  Then  he  can  serve  two  terms  now,  put  up  an¬ 
other  “clay  man”  for  four  years  and  come  back  eight  more, 
and  still  be  yonger  than  a  number  of  the  white  house  occu¬ 
pants.  What  do  the  American  people  think?  What  are 
they  doing?  It  can  not  be  that  they  love  Teddy  more,  but 
that  they  love  Dear  Will  less.  Teddy’s  wailing  cry  is  the 
people,  the  people.  When  God’s  truth  is  that  the  people  who 
are  for  him  is  the  crowd  he  carried  along  when  he  was 
president,  and  the  lower  stratum  of  humanity.  The  secret 
of  his  third  term  popularity  is  the  lax  emigration  laws  of 
this  country.  One  million  and  a  half  of  southern  Europeans, 
the  sewage  of  decaying  nations  dumped  on  our  shores  every 
twelve  months.  The  “Rabble”  is  for  Teddy.  It  was 

Washington  that  said  the  people  were  weak.  Where  the 
-  people  are  weak  we  need  strong  men.  A  man  that  will 
prey  on  the  credulity  of  the  people,  and  whose  personal  am¬ 
bition  is  unlimited,  will  drive  our  ship  of  state  like  the 
Titanic  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea  regardless  of  death,  hell  or 
the  grave. 

This  is  too  young  a  nation  to  begin  to  decay.  All  na¬ 
tions  rise  with  patriotism,  but  go  down  with  personal  am¬ 
bition.  Should  Theodore  Roosevelt  again  become  president 
of  the  United  States  then,  as  Napoleon  was  the  first  consul 
of  France,  Roosevelt  would  be  the  first  dictator  of  the 
American  people. 

19 

* 


V 


No  man  in  the  United  States  will  deny  that  Roosevelt 
put  Taft  in  the  executive  chair.  Then  if  Taft  is  a  failure, 
Teddy  was  the  originator  and  designer.  Shall  ninety  million 
people  whose  liberty  was  born  of  intellectual  and  bodily 
slavery  in  the  feudal  ages  of  thot  and  chains,  delegate  to  one 
man  to  run  their  political  affairs?  God  Almighty  forbid. 
“Avarice  and  ambition  are  watching  in  the  day,  while  con¬ 
cupiscence  like  a  pestilence  walketh  in  darkness.”  This 
nation  is  only  in  its  infancy,  or,  at  least,  should  be.  Why 
should  men  with  such  personal  influence  trample  beneath 
their  feet  the  holiest  of  American  institutions?  It  is  not 
what  you  say  you’ll  do,  but  what  you  do  do. 

*  x  •  , 

The  people  of  this  nation  has  ruled.  They  do  now  rule, 
and  they  will  rule.  Don’t  fret  about  the  people.  It  took 
the  Chinese  300  years  to  get  their  country  back  from  the 
Mancus,  but  they  got  it.  It  took  the  French  a  few  hundred 
years,  and  Portugal  now  has  her  own.  But  what  the  Ameri¬ 
can  people  must  do  is  to  not  let  their  country-  get  away  from 
them. 

It  appears  now,  no  matter  wr,hat  the  outcome  of  the  Chi¬ 
cago  convention  will  be,  that  the  policy  of  this  country  will 
be  dictated  for  at  least  the  next  four  years  from  Baltimore. 
Human  nature  is  alike  everywhere  and  any  party  will  be¬ 
come  corrupt  if  it  is  in  power  too  long.  Let  them  do  what 
they  may  at  Chicago;  let  McKinley  look  grave  when  Dixon 
makes  threats;  let  them  do  what  they  please;  let  them  an¬ 
nihilate  each  other  if  they  wish,  the  real  issues  will  come 
after  the  Baltimore  convention.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will 
the  issues  of  the  people  be  settled  by  the  people  for  the 
people. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  TAFT. 


Editor  State  Register- — Dear  Sir:  Let’s  see  what  Roose¬ 
velt  said  about  Taft  after  he  had  put  him  in  the  white 
house:  “No  man  of  better  training,  no  man  of  more  daunt¬ 

less  courage,  of  sounder  common  sense,  and  of  higher  and 
finer  character,  has  ever  come  to  the  presidency  than  Wil¬ 
liam  Howard  Taft.” 

And  again:  “It  is  one  of  Mr.  Taft’s  great  gifts  of  use¬ 
fulness  that  he  possesses  exactly  the  ability  unflinchingly  to 
stand  by  the  right,  and  yet  to  do  it  with  the  minimum  of 


20 


offensiveness  toward  those  who  do  not  see  matters  as  clearly 
as  he  does.” 

Now,  listen:  Let  us  dissect  Mr.  Roosevelt.  To  begin 
with  we  want  to  call  him  a  liar.  How  can  a  man  with  the 
least  degree  of  consistency,  after  having  praised  a  man  as 
he  did  Taft  as  his  bosom  friend,  and  putting  him  up  for 
the  presidency  and  presenting  him  to  the  people  as  the 
greatest  and  noblest  and  the  most  entitled  to  the  position  of 
any  man  in  the  party,  and  then  after  his  election  claiming 
him  to  be  the  noblest  of  men  and  most  fit  and  qualified  for 
the  presidency;  and  then  he  (Roosevelt),  the  man  who  said 
these  things  about  Mr.  Taft,  lauding  him  to  heavens  as  the 
most  immaculate  man  in  the  Republican  party — how,  I  say, 
how  can  the  very  man,  who  said'  these  very  things,  now  pull 
him  down  and  send  him  to  hell?  It  would  have  done  for 
some  other  man  or  set  of  men  to  have  done  this,  if  they  had 
found)  fault  with  Mr.  Taft.  But  for  the  man,  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  to  have  said  and  done  what  he  has  against  Mr. 
Taft,  is  beyond  our  comprehension.  How  a  man  occupying 
the  position  that  Roosevelt  did  could  have  the  nerve,  the 
audacity,  the  face  and  countenance  to  do  such  a  thing  is  far 
beyond  opr  horizon.  As  Lot’s  wife  was  turned  into  a  pillar 
of  salt,  Roosevelt  seems  to  have  been  turned  into  a  bucket 
of  gall.  After  having  put  Taft  in  the  white  house,  and 
after  having  lauded  him  as  he  did,  he  should  have  been  the 
last  man  on  the  face  of  God’s  green  earth  to  have  said  a 
word  against  him.  Decency,  propriety  and  self-respect 
should  have  made  him  as  mum  as  an  oyster.  If  Taft  went 
wrong  it  wasn’t  Rosevelt’s  place  last  of  all  men  to  have 
found  fault.  Other  people  would  find  it  out  soon  enough. 
It  was  enough  for  two-thirds  of  the  people  to  be  against 
Taft.  Teddy  should  have  upheld  Taft’s  hands  with  a  father¬ 
ly  criticism  and  said,  “I  stand  behind  him.”  But  it  seems 
vince  the  world  that  Roosevelt  is  the  worst  fakir 
that  ever  came  down  the  line.  How  can  people  believe 
in  his  sincerity.  How  he  can  fake  as  he  is  now  and 
useless  for  us  »to  exhaust  ourselves  trying  to  con- 
pull  the  wool  over  the  eyes  of  the  people  is  what  seems 
strange.  Everything  is  proof  beyond  question  that  Teddy 
has  been  and  is  now  playing  the  lowest  game  of  any  man 
known  in  the  annals  of  political  history.  Oakes  Ames  and 
Roscoe  Cockling  are  angels  with  sprouted  wings  compared 
to  him.  Tell  me  if  you  ever  heard  of  such  a  game  before. 
The  wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  or  the  wreck  of  the  Titanic,  can 


21 


* 

illy  represent  the  wreck  of  our  Ship  of  State  if  once  Roose¬ 
velt  gets  his  hand  at  the  helm.  We  will  have  gone  down  to 
rise  no  more  if  such  a  skipper  as  this  is  left  to  steer  us 
across  the  open  seas. 

In  the  midst  of  this  disaster  we  would  say:  “Thou,  too, 
sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State;  sail  on,  O  Union  strong  and  great. 
Humanity,  with  all  its  fears,  with  all  its  hopes  of  future 
years,  is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate.  In  spite  of  false 
light  on  the  shore,  sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea.  Our 
hearts,  our  hopes  are  all  with  thee.  Our  hearts,  our  hopes, 
our  prayers,  our  tears,  our  faith  triumphant  o’er  our  fears, 
are  all  with  thee — are  all  with  thee.” 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


HE  SAW  CONVENTION  IN  ACTION. 

Springfield,  Ill.,  4  p.  m.,  June  20,  1912. 

Mr.  Clendenin,  Editor  State  Register: 

Have  just  returned  from  Chicago,  where  I  attended 
the  national  convention  Wednesday.  Was  locked  in  with  10,- 
000  Republicans  for  seven  consecutive  hours  without  any¬ 
thing  to  eat,  drink  or  smoke.  You  know  I  am  a  Democrat 
of  the  latter  day  saint  kind,  and  have  been  wanting  the 
Republicans  to  let  me  settle  their  little  difficulty  for  them. 
My  getting  a  seat  in  the  gallery  Tuesday  was  due  to  Sen¬ 
ator  Billy  E.  Mason’s  courtesy  to  me  and  strategy  with 
several  hundred  policemen  and  one  of  the  doorkeepers. 
The  Senator  is  a  personal  friend  of  mine  and  wrote  me 
in  response  that  he  thought  he  could  get  me  a  ticket.  But 
was  not  even  able  to  get  one  for  himself.  So  he  went  with 
me  personally  to  the  coliseum  and  got  me  in.  And  although 
I  had  a  letter  in  my  pocket  from  Col.  Frank  O.  Lowden  to 
him,  and  one  from  Mr.  McKinley  saying  they  would  help  me 
to  get  in  if  I  came,  the  letters  would  have  availed  me  noth¬ 
ing  without  Mr.  Mason’s  assistance,  as  I  could  not  have 
gotten  within  a  stone  throw  of  them.  But  after  running  the 
gauntlet  of  several  hundred  policemen  I  got  a  good  seat, 
and  I  will  give  you  my  views  as  I  saw  it  Wednesday. 

The  fighting  was  fierce.  No  gladiator  ever  entered  the 
arena  with  a  thirst  for  blood  with  more  determination  than 
the  men  who  spoke  pro  and  con  on  the  Hadley  motion 
Wednesday.  The  only  thing  that  averted  a  panic  when 
the  demonstration  was  on  was  the  fact  that  1,200  policemen 
were  held  in  reserve  in  the  rear  room  of  the  building.  Never 
witnessed  anything  like  it  before  in  my  life.  Only  one  man 


in  the  crowd  seemed  to  have  a  speck  of  sense,  and  that 
was  one  of  the  delegates  who  wTas  thoughtful  enough  to 
put  a  lunch  in  his  pocket  when  he  came.  He  took  advant¬ 
age  of  the  occasion  to  eat  his  lunch.  It  looked  like  a  Teddy 
crowd  at  that  time.  If  the  voting  had  been  on  at  that  time 
for  candidate  somebody  would  have  been  nominated.  The 
argument  on  the  Hadley  motion  was  all  against  the  Teddy 
bunch  and  w’hen  it  came  to  Hadley’s  recapitulation  of  the 
argument  “bombast  and  hot  air”  was  all  the  argument  they 
had.  They  adjourned  at  6  a.  m.,  having  done  nothing  but 
point  tongues  of  fire  at  each  other.  It  is  impossible  to  even 
guess  at  the  situation  as  a  Democrat  sees  it. 

William  J.  Bryan  was  the  most  popular  man  there.  I 
saw”  dozens  of  Republicans  point  their  fihgers  toward  him 
and  say,  “there  sits  the  next  president.”  I  think  they 
would  like  to  have  him  for  a  compromise  candidate,  but 
they  know  wTe  wfill  need  him  next  wreek  at  Baltimore. 

Senator  Root  is  a  most  excellent  chairman.  He  means 
what  he  says,  and  the  Teddy  bunch  found  it  out.  A  small 
Teddy  crowd  thought  they  would  have  a  little  fun  all  their 
own,  when  one  of  the  Taft  men  wras  speaking.  Root 

stepped  to  the  edge  of  the  platform  and  said:  “Gentlemen, 

# 

delegate  or  no  delegate,  you’ll  behave  yourselves  w’hile  you 
sit  there.”  I  think  Root  is  all  right. 

Another  interesting  episode  was  a  colored  rejected 
Teddy  delegate  took  a  notion  he  would  address  the  audience 
on  his  own  hook.  Of  course  he  wras  ruled  out  of  order,  but 
he  persisted  in  making  his  address  in  spite  of  the  Taft 
crowd  shouting  him  off  the  floor. 

/ 

The  question  with  each  delegate  there  is:  “Where  am 
I  at?”  And  the  only  song  they  sung  was,  “Johnny  Get 
Your  Gun,  Your  SwTord  and  Your  Pistol.”  They  wrould 
throw*  taunts  and  slurs  such  as  “Guggenheim,”  ‘“Storer 
letter,”  and  many  that  I  did  not  understand1 — w’orse  and 
more  of  it  than  I  ever  saw  Democrat  or  Republican  throw 
at  each  other  in  my  life. 

It  means— put  up  (any  old  man)  at  Baltimore  and  we’ll 
put  him  in  at  Washington  city.  Their  cause  is  lost.  It 
means  not  only  four  years,  but  time  enough  to  test  the 
Democratic  party  out,  not  only  in  theory,  but  practice  as 
well. 

While  I  appreciate  greatly  the  courtesy  showm  me  and 
the  effort  some  of  my  “high-up”  Republican  friends  made 
to  get  me  a  ticket,  I  left  the  coliseum  at  6:30  without  shak- 


23 


ing  hands  with  a  single  person  except  the  young  woman 
who  led  Hadley’s  forty-five  minute  demonstration.  I  con¬ 
gratulated  her  on  knowing  how  to  handle  10,000  men  better 
than  they  could  manage  themselves. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


CHALLENGE  TO  BULL  MOOSE. 

Springfield,  Ill.,  Sept.  11,  1912. 

Illinois  State  Register: 

The  Evening  News  of  August  23  published  an  Anti- 

Bull  Moose  article  written  by  me.  E.  E.  Greenhalgh,  of 

\ 

Petersburg,  took  exceptions  to  it  and  wrrote  me  a  challenge 
in  the  same  paper  of  August  26,  challenging  me  to  meet 
him  anywhere  upon  any  platform  to  discuss  the  questions 
at  issue.  I  accepted  his  challenge  on  the  condition  that  he 
pick  five  of  the  best  Bull  Moosers  in  the  United  States  to 
assist  him  in  his  undertaking  and  we  would  discuss  the 
issues  in  the  arsenal  (without  any  expense  to  me)  here 
•  in  Springfield  with  the  consent  of  Governor  Deneen,  or  who¬ 
ever  the  proper  authorities  are.  Now,  I  have  not  heard 
from  him  or  any  of  his  friends;  and  although  I  am  not 
a  politician  and  not  given  to  public  discussion,  or  gifted 
in  the  art  of  oratory,  I  challenge  not  only  Mr.  Greenhalgh, 
but  any  Bull  Mooser  in  the  United  States,  to  a  debate  of 
the  same  issue,  namely:  That  Theodore  Roosevelt  has  no 
moral  right  to  ask  the  American  people  to  again  support 
him  for  the  presidency;  that  he  was  not  justified  in  the 
organization  of  his  Bull  Moose  party;  and  that  by  reason 
of  the  position  he  occupies  he  is  the  most  dangerous  political 

character  in  the  United  States. 

•  «  . 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


HE  RAPS  ROOSEVELT. 


James  H.  Kirby  Says  He  Is  a  “Fire  Eater”  Against  the  Bull 

Moose  Leaders. 

To  the  Evening  News: 

I  don’t  want  to  slight  you  with  my  little  prognostications 
of  the  future  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Your  paper  has  been 
very  kind  to  me  in  helping  me  build  up  a  good  real  estate 
business  here  in  and  around  Springfield  in  so  short  a  time 
and  I  want  to  pay  you  back  with  one  of  my  Roosevelt 
“squibs.”  You  may  not  indorse  Teddy,  but  you  don’t  come 
out  openly  against  him.  And  as  I  am  strictly  a  real  estate 


24 


man  and  not  a  politician  I  can  speak  my  sentiments  and 
defy  the  world  to  take  it  up. 

I’m  a  ring  tailed  rouser,  a  fire  eater  and  a  bush  whacker 
against  the  bronco  buster  and  the  Bull  Moose  tamer.  I 
want  to  tell  you  .that  I’ve  got  it  in  for  him,  deep,  dire  and 
damnable.  He’s  a  coward  of  the  first  water,  a  criminal  in 
politics  of  the  deepest  dye.  If  I  was  a  Republican  as  I  am 
a  Democrat,  the  name  of  Benedict  Arnold  would  sound 
sw'eet  to  my  ear  compared  to  that  of  Theodore  Roosevelt- 
If  he  is  not  a  spy  and  a  traitor  to  the  paarty  that  Lincoln 
made,  w’hat  is  he?  Oh,  God!  thou  who  are  mighty  to  save, 
save  us  from  Rooseveltism,  the  pretetnder,  the  dictator  and 
the  wrecker. 

The  danger  lies  not  in  Roosevelt  but  his  following.  We 
are  astounded  beyond  comparison  at  the  men  who  follow 
him.  Not  at  the  class  that  clamor  for  him,  but  a  few  in¬ 
dividuals. 

“We  want  Teddy,  we  want  Teddy,  we  w*ant  Teddy.” 
That  is  the  wail.  He  is  not  a  progressive.  If  he  was  why 
didn’t  he  say  so  when  he  was  president?  Every  progressive 
idea  that  he  has,  he  has  stolen  from  Bryan,  Wilson,  Cum¬ 
mins  and  Bob  La  Follette.  He  has  stolen  the  presidency 
from  Mr.  La  Follette  and  the  Republican  party  and  donated 
it  to  Wilson  and  the  Democratic  party.  Wouldn’t  you 
call  that  kind  of  a  man  a  thief  and  a  highway  robber  in 
politics? 

If  a  progressive  was  entitled  to  the  nomination  at  Chi¬ 
cago  in  June  who  should  it  have  been — La  Follette  the 
pioneer,  or  Teddy  the  tail?  I’ll  leave  it  to  you,  my 
dear  Republican  neighbor.  I  can  not  look  upon  Roose¬ 
velt  as  anything  but  a  monster,  I  admired  him  as  no  other 
Democrat  did  till  the  day  he  threw  his  hat  in  the  ring. 
Now  I  would  drive  him  to  hell’s  gate  and  kick  him  in.  This 
is  not  a  fight  between  progressives  and  liberals  and  stand, 
patters  and  conservatives.  It  is  not  a  question  of  revising 
the  tariff  upward  or  downward.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
who  shall  solve  the  problem  of  the  high  cost  of  living.  The 
question  is:  Shall  the  people  or  Roosevelt  rule. 

For  the  sake  of  argument,  granting  that  Roosevelt  might 
be  right  in  every  particular  as  to  his  platform,  the  third  term 
issue  is  enough  to  put  him  behind  the  bars.  And  granting 
that  he  did  not  serve  three  successive  terms,  two  terms  is 
enough  for  any  one  man  among  90  million  people  and  would 
give  some  of  the  other  boys  a  better  show  and  encourage 


25 


the  youth  of  the  country,  especially  since  Washington,  the 
father  of  our  country,  said  so  and  Jefferson  and  Jackson 
and  Tyler  too,  and  granting  that  he  succeeded  once  and 
was  elected  only  once,  and  that  he  did  not  serve  the  full 
term  by  succession,  you  know  and  God  Almighty  knows 
since  it  happened  this  way  that  seven  and  one-half  years 
is  enough  for  any  one  man  to  serve  in  this  United  States 
of  ours.  I  say,  that  by  the  eternal  gods  Roosevelt  shall 
not  be  president  again.  I  say  rise  up  and  strike  for  your 
sires,  your  altars,  your  God  and  your  native  land. 

JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 


THE  NATIONAL  TAFT  BUREAU 

THE  RALEIGH  HOTEL 
Washington!  D.  C. 

1 

WM.  B.  McKINLEY,  Director. 

JOHN  C.  EVERSMAN,  Secretary. 

LEROY  T.  VERNON, 

Director  Literary  Bureau. 

May  13,  1912. 

Mr.  James  H.  Kirby,  Springfield,  Ill. 

Dear  Sir: — Your  letter  of  the  8th  is  at  hand,  for  which 

* 

accept  thanks. 

I  congratulate  you  upon  your  patriotic  desire,  regard¬ 
less  of  party  affiliations,  to  uphold  the  .hands  of  President 
Taft.  If  more  people,  through  the  same  disinterested  mo¬ 
tives,  would  take  an  interest  in  civic  affairs,  there  would 
be  no  question  about  preserving  the  fundamental  principles 
upon  which  our  gerat  country  rests. 

Appreciating  your  having  written  me,  I  am 

Very  truly  yours, 

W.  B.  McKINLEY. 


William  E.  Mason  and  Lewis  P.  Mason,  Attorneys  at  Law, 
Chicago. 

May  11,  1912. 

Mr.  James  H.  Kirby,  313  V2  S.  5th  St.,  Springfield,  Ill. 

My  Dear  Sir: — I  thank  you  for  your  kind  and  generous 
letter.  In  regard  to  tickets  to  the  Convention,  I  am  not  a 
delegate,  and  therefore  do  not  expect  to  get  a  ticket.  I 
have  been  to  a  great  many  conventions,  and  have  been  able 

i 

to  assist  friends  in  getting  in,  and  if  you  should  be  in  Chi¬ 
cago  and  report  at  my  office,  I  think  we  can  probably  find 

some  way  to  get  in,  provided  you  cannot  get  a  ticket  from 

m  >  % 

some  of  the  delegates.  Of  course,  it  is  better  to  get  a 


26 


ticket,  if  you  can,  but  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure  of  getting  a 
ticket  for  myself. 

Yours  very  truly, 

WM.  E.  MASON. 


The  National  Taft  Bureau. 


June  13,  1912. 


Mr.  James  H.  Kirby,  Springfield,  Ill. 

f 

Dear  Friend: — A  reply  to  your  letter  has  been  delayed 
while  trying  to  find  some  way  to  comply  with  your  request. 
But  as  you  will  see  by  the  enclosed  letter  from  (Secretary 
Hayward  of  the  National  Committee  my  efforts  to  secure 
an  allotment  of  tickets  have  proved  unavailing  for  the  reason 
stated  by  him. 

It  would  give  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  accom¬ 
modate  my  friends,  who  I  hope  will  understand  that  I 
have  made  every  effort  to  do  so. 


The  distribution  of  convention  tickets  always  has  been 

and  is  now  made  by  the  National  Committee,  but  it  has 

•> 

ben  taken  for  granted'  very  naturally,  I  suppose,  that  this 
Bureau  would  have  something  to  do  with  it;  consequently, 
I  have  received  hundreds  -of  requests  for  them,  with  none 
of  which  can  I  comply,  greatly  to  my  embarrassment. 

While  it  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  make  any  promises 
as  to  tickets  or  admissions,  I  should  be  glad  if  my  friends, 
for  whom  it  is  my  disposition  to  do  all  possible,  will  call 
here  and  see  me  in  the  event  that  I  may,  perchance,  be  able 
to  find  some  way  to  get  them  into  the  convention. 

Begging  your  pardon  for  this  belated  reply,  the  un¬ 
favorable  nature  of  which  is  entirely  due  to  conditions  be¬ 
yond  my  control,  I  am,  with  kind  regards, 

Sincerely, 

W.  B.  McKINLEY. 


v 


Republican  National  Committee,  Coliseum,  Chicago,  Ill. 

June  12,  1912. 

Honorable  William  B.  McKinley,  Director  National  Taft 
Bureau,  Congress  Hotel,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

My  Dear  Mr.  McKinley: 

Referring  to  your  repeated  urgent  requests  for  tickets 
of  admission  to  the  National  Convention  in  order  that  you 
may  comply,  in  part,  at  least,  with  the  gerat  demand  upon 
you  for  them,  it  is  with  the  deepest  regret  that  I  find  it 


27 


absolutely  Impossible  to  meet  your  wishes  which  to  do 
would  give  me  great  pleasure. 

I  fully  realize  the  embarrassment  on  this  account  you 
are  obliged  to  suffer  both  by  reason  of  your  official  position 
and  by  the  fact  of  the  Convention  being  held  in  your  own 
State. 

The  facts  are:  The  Convention  seats  about  11,000 

people.  After  the  delegates,  alternates,  newspaper  men, 
subscribers  to  the  convention  fund,  and  National  Com¬ 
mitteemen  have  been  provided  for,  less  than  4,000  seats  re¬ 
main  for  the  vast  number  of  persons  from  all  over  the 
United  States  who  are  clamoring  for  tickets.  Even  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  following  the  custom,  is 
allotted  but  150  tickets,  about  80  of  which  will  go  to  foreign 
Ambassadors  and  Ministers,  and  the  remainder  to  the 
President’s  cabinet  and  personal  friends. 

The  various  State  managers  of  the  respective  candi¬ 
dates  are  not  even  included  in  the  distribution,  and  must 
like  many  of  us  depend  upon  their  own  resources. 

Never  has  the  demand  for  tickets  been  so  great  as  at 
this  time,  and  the  ingenuity  of  the  Committee  is  severely 
taxed  to  meet  the  situation. 

The  distribution  has  been  as  equitable  as  it  has  been 
possible  to  make  it  and  as  greatly  as  we  would  like  to  ac¬ 
commodate  all  of  our  friends,  especially  those  like  your¬ 
self,  are  naturally  overwhelmed  with  requests  for  tickets, 
it  is  simply  a  physical  impossibility  to  do  so. 

Assuring  you  of  my  great  regret  at  being  unable  to 
assist  you  to  meet  your  own  situation  ragarding  tickets, 
and  trusting  I  have  made  the  reason  plain,  I  am 

Yours  truly, 

WILLIAM  HAYWARD,  Secretary. 

% 


William  E.  Mason  and  Lewis  F.  Mason,  Attorneys  at  Law, 
Chicago. 

June  14,  1912. 

Mr.  James  H.  Kirby,  Springfield,  Ill. 

Dear  Sir  and  Friend: — I  have  been  trying  all  week  to 
secure  tickets  for  the  Convention  but  so  far  have  been  un¬ 
able  to  secure  a  ticket  for  myself.  I  expect  to  know  some 
of  the  door  keepers,  and  think  I  will  be  able  to  take  care 
of  some  of  my  friend's  in  that  way,  and  if  you  care  to  take 
a  chance,  report  at  my  office  Tuesday  or  Wednesday.  If  I 


28 


am  able  to  secure  a  ticket,  will  write  or  wire  you  before 
Monday. 

Yours  sincerely, 

W.  E.  MASON. 

P.  S. — Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  had  a  talk  with 
Colonel  Lowden,.  and  he  has  told  me  that  he  will,  if  possible, 
send  you  at  least  a  ticket  for  single  admission. 

Republican  National  Committee,  Coliseum,  Chicago,  Ill. 

June  14,  1912. 

Dear  Senator  Mason: — I  am  just  in  receipt  of  your 
favor  of  June  14th,  asking  for  a  ticket  to  the  convention  for 
Mr.  James  H.  Kirby,  Springfield,  Illinois.  I  have  received 
a  thousand  applications  for  every  ticket  allotted  to  me,  and 
I  regret  exceedingly  that  I  shall  not  be  able  to  comply  with 
your  request.  If  I  get  through  this  convention  alive, 
nobody  will  ever  find  me  in  this  situation  again.  With 
personal  regards,  I  am 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

FRANK  O.  LOWDEN. 

Hon.  Wm.  E.  Mason,  108  South  La  Salle  Street,  Chicago,  Ill. 
Referred  to  Mr.  Kirby  by  William  E.  Mason. 


Springfield',  Ill.,  Sept.  30,  1912. 

In  conclusion,  my  dear  fellow  citizens,  I  apeal  to  you 
to  be  guided  by  the  dictates  of  an  educated  conscience. 
And  w’hile  I  am  a  Democrat  and  am  in  favor  of  low  tariff, 
or  no  tariff,  on  the  necessities  of  life,  I  do  not  ask  you  to 
vote  for  Wilson  unless  you  feel  that  way.  All  I  ask  you  to 
do,  in  the  name  of  bleeding,  suffering,  and  dying  humanity, 
is  to  not  vote  for  a  man  who  has  shattered  the  sacred  prece¬ 
dent  of  two  terms  only,  and  w’ho  'would  attack  'the  constitu¬ 
tion  by  tearing  down  the  bulwark  of  our  government — that 
of  the  judicial  department,  and  advocate  the  recall  of  the 
President.  Ever  trusting  in  the  people,  and  believing  and 
hoping  that  this  shall  continue  to  be  a  government  “of  the 

•  i 

people  for  the  people  and  by  the  people,”  and  that  no  one 
man  among  us  shall  rise  up  and  alone  dictate  the  policies 
of  this  United  States  of  America.  I  leave  the  issue  with 
you. 


JAMES  H.  KIRBY. 
31314  S.  5th  St.,  Springfield,  Ill. 


29 


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